MUMBAI: Cyrus Mistry, the ousted Chairman of Tata Group, said he is not intimidated by the criminal defamation case filed by Ratan Tata's close aid R Venkataramanan.

Venkataramanan, popularly known as Venkat, filed a criminal defamation suit against Mistry for allegedly making false statements and has sought Rs 500 crore in damages.

He is the managing trustee of Tata Trusts, a bunch of eight charity organisations, that control about 66 percent stake in Tata Sons, the investment holding company of $103 billion salt-to-software conglomerate. Tata Trusts was instrumental in Mistry's removal on Oct 24 last year.

The suit, which comes days ahead of the hearing of the case between Mistry and Tata Sons at the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) on July 3, has been filed against all the directors of Cyrus Investments and Sterling Investment run by Mistry's family.

“It is rather odd that a poor tactic like criminal defamation to muzzle litigation has been advised and adopted. We are not intimidated by these tactics ahead of the NCLAT hearing," said office of Cyrus Mistry in a statement. "These coercive actions only strengthen our resolve to do the right thing in the long term interest of the Tata Group.”

Venkataramanan alleged that Mistry had made "false, malicious and derogatory" allegations against him.

Mistry had alleged about "fraudulent transactions of Rs 22 crore" involving non-existent parties in India and Singapore at AirAsia India and had stated that Venkataramanan, a shareholder and director of AirAsia India, considered these transactions as non-material and didn't encourage any further study of it.

Venkat also said that the email, which subsequently was leaked to the media, has caused "irreparable" damages to his reputation among his colleagues, family, friends and society.

Mistry's family firms approached the appellate tribunal after NCLT dismissed the Mistry's case against Tata Sons and its directors citing insufficient shareholding to allege mismanagement and minority shareholder oppression at India’s largest conglomerate.